The US low speed rail network works pretty well for freight. Despite some occasional bottlenecks and delays, it's still superior in certain ways to rail freight in China and the EU.
As for HSR, do we really need it? It might make sense in the northeast corridor but it's hard to make a business case elsewhere. The California HSR project has turned into the usual government megaproject boondoggle with long delays and cost overruns. Even if it actually gets built I'll probably never ride on it.
This is very true, and also reminds me of our telephone system, or Japan - which someone described as "living in a futuristic version of the 1990s".
Most accurate description of living in Japan I've read!
A more physical example is the rail network in the US. It's often asked "why don't we have high speed rail in the US?" Being a nation of autophiles obviously doesn't help but it's not as simple as putting higher speed trains on existing track. It's not even as simple as replacing the existing track with track that can take a higher speed train.
The rail network we had is an artifact of the performance constraints of 19th century trains for the most part. Top speed is the most visible constraint. But the grading, turning angles, etc are all a function of much lower constraint on top speed.
We'd probably be better off if we had no national rail network at all, which is pretty much the situation China was in. Admittedly there are other factors in China's rapid HSR deployments (eg streamlining planning and acquisition of land).
But I digress. Timing is hugely important in scaling.